


Count to Ten

by Carapace



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, HP Horror Fest 2018, Mindfuck, three kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-03-31 23:12:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13985334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carapace/pseuds/Carapace
Summary: Sometimes life is all about timing.





	Count to Ten

**_One_ **

            _Beep-beep-beep_ , and the reminder alerts Hermione to the nearing lunchtime. She kills the alarm in her wrist watch by pressing the off button and she places her quill down, ready to recap her ink and put away her writing equipment in the large pencil case she still uses from her early days at Hogwarts and which she has lying open on the wooden desktop. She pulls the strewn parchments covering her oversize desk back into a haphazard semblance of order and then taps the end of the bundle on the desk and orders them into a precise alignment.

            Her fingertips are smudged with ink and she attempts to remove some of the mess with one of the spare handkerchiefs she keeps in her desk drawers. She looks around the tidy office expecting Harry’s knock on her door to take her to lunch, but after several minutes, she catches herself just staring off into space as her mind refocuses on the difficult project she has yet to make any breakthrough on. She drums the fingers of her right hand on the desk and, hearing a small buzzing over her head, she raises her left hand to wave it away. Sunshine streams into her office through the enchanted window and provides just the perfect amount of light for reading. The office is quiet and she suspects that everyone in the department has already left for lunch. A bead of sweat drips down her neck and her curls have turned to frizz.

            She has an office to herself, a benefit of the fame that has followed her after the war and into her work at the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Privately, she views her office as something of a sanctuary from the pressures in her life and feels more comfortable here then at her flat. She is only twenty years old but that doesn’t stop her from thinking she should have figured out more of her life by now.

            Hermione looks at her watch again. Harry is running late. _Buzz-buzz_. She looks down at her purse, shaking slightly from the vibrations. Not Harry, but Ron, so she dismisses the call and replaces the phone inside her purse. She charmed a set of dead mobile phones as gifts for Harry and Ron last Christmas since neither Harry nor she had access to a Floo in their offices, and Hermione still has a little thrill every time she takes hers past the Ministry guards, knowing she is still able to bend certain rules by being clever. However, right now she doesn’t have time to deal with Ron or his rather unpredictable ability of voicing brutal, searing insights whenever she least suspects. They were broken up once again and the romantic holiday this upcoming weekend had provided the perfect platform to dissemble “Little Miss Perfect” in the press with all the skill of a butcher.

            She looks at the cup perching in front of her on the edge of the desk. She had placed the thing carefully in front of her this morning, but as far away as possible while still remaining on her desk and where she has kept her eyes on it. She doesn’t trust it. She vividly recalls stabbing the horrible thing with a Basilisk fang two years ago during the Battle of Hogwarts. Two years ago, it had been broken into pieces, completely wrecked; but there it lies, whole again with gold gleaming in the sunlight, as if mocking her. There are not many people who know that this was once a Horcrux and an even smaller, select few that know Voldemort made several more. Neville doesn’t even know. He thinks he helped Harry get close enough to kill Voldemort by killing the giant snake, not that he had killed a part of the Dark Lord’s soul. The knowledge that the creation of a Horcrux is possible and that someone besides Herpo the Foul—a wizard in ancient Greece who was only alleged to have created one—and that seven had been achieved in a comparably recent time by no less a personage than Tom Riddle was too awful to even think about as common knowledge. Harry was in total agreement that all precaution must be taken and as few people informed as possible.

            In the secret compartment in her desk is Dumbledore’s copy of _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ that he had removed from the Hogwarts Library, and that Harry had removed from his office—the key book that Riddle had used to figure out how to turn the golden cup of Helga Hufflepuff before her into the darkest of dark objects. She takes the book out and places it on her desk and turns to the marked pages which she has gone over so many times before. _Buzz-buzz_. She swats at the bug but misses. She feels there is something she has overlooked. She reads the lines again, having memorized the few brief mentions by rote. She thinks perhaps… She sorts through the notes Harry had made after consulting Horace Slughorn on the incantation required to create a Horcrux. They had the facts but none of the insight, and there was not an easily apparent answer as to why the cup had repaired itself. What if there was a pattern to the words or even a break in the rhythm? She reads them aloud quietly, her voice low, too afraid that someone is still in the department and not at lunch and might overhear her.

            There is a heavy knock on her door. “One second,” Hermione calls, unwilling to chance the visitor not being Harry to open her door without everything safely tucked away. She caps her inkpot. She picks up the rolled parchments, swats at the bug that lands on her desk, takes out her keys, and opens the locked compartment hidden within the wood panel in the well of her desk to the left of where her legs rest. Her phone starts buzzing again and she nearly drops Hufflepuff’s cup. She brings the rolled parchment down with a thwack and catches the bug at the corner of her desktop. She moves quickly, securing the papers and the cup and closes the drawer, removing the key and picking up her phone as she grabs her purse and coat. Ron is calling again. She silences it once more and opens the office door to a smiling Harry, and then with a wave of her wand locks it behind her with a click.

**_Two_ **

            She comes to with Harry’s face over hers. “Hermione,” he is shaking her. “Hermione?”

            “I feel a little odd. What happened?” She sits up.

            Harry puts a hand to her forehead. “You fainted. It happened so quickly I couldn’t even grab you, and then you were on the floor and unresponsive. It was like you just collapsed inward.”

            “Oh,” she says, at a loss for words. “I have some Pepperup and some Invigoration Draught in the top shelf of my desk.” She starts to get up but Harry puts a hand on her shoulder and stops her. He looks almost as shaken as she feels.  

            “Just sit. I’ll get it.”

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says while pulling herself back up with the help of a desk. Harry was already turning the handle but looks back at her when nothing happens.

            “Oh, right, sorry,” and she waves her wand at the door. She hears the click, and Harry starts to turn the handle once more as several Aurors rush in with their wands up.

            Hermione screams and Harry has his wand out and pointing back at them in seconds.

            “Potter! Ministry alarm went off. What happened?”

            “The alarm? Nothing. I was just taking Hermione to lunch. The alarm,” he repeats again slowly, his eyes tracking over the department but seeing nothing that could have set off the alarms.

            “That’s strange,” says an Auror as the rest lower their wands as they all look around uneasily. “Well, do me a favor and write this up after you get back. Probably nothing but we’ll need the matter filed anyway.”

            “Will do,” says Harry with a grin and pulls Hermione behind him as they follow them out of the department.

**_Three_ **

            When Hermione returns from lunch, her door is unlocked and Rita Skeeter is strewn across her desk, dead, her purpling body lying face down, one arm twisted at the elbow and the other at an odd angle, her hands balled. Her heel is half off her foot and blood is pooling on the floor. Hermione pauses for only a second and then her foot kicks backward shutting the door and this scene away from any prying eyes in the busy office behind her. There’s a thud as her back hits the door and she merely stares at the body in her office. Her brain, so full of facts, seems to pull up from nowhere that in Italian ‘desco’ means both table and butcher’s block. She takes a few hesitant steps forward, and then she’s just getting on with it. She reaches for the arm and pulls the wrist up so she can feel for the pulse that she knows is not there. Bodies don’t look like this when there’s life left. She remembers Diggory and she remembers the war.

             Suddenly, there’s sharp, staccato rapping on the door and a clipped voice says, “Granger.” She pulls her wand and with a swish places a Notice-Me-Not charm around her desk. Her door opens and he steps inside her office, closing it behind him. He’s staring at her, his usual tidy mop of blonde hair in disarray and his eyes intense. She releases a slow breath and her heart beats faster.

            “Potter might have mentioned you fainting,” he says in explanation, a small smirk in the corner of his mouth. She walks quickly to him, her arms reaching around him, pulling him close and twisting him around to face her office door. She’s staring over his shoulder at the body again and her heart is hammering.

            “I saw the article in the Prophet this morning,” he whispers in her ear. “Look at me.” She does. He kisses her.

**_Four_ **

             Hermione is staring at her watch, willing the small hands to go faster. She’s been in here for hours now, alone, waiting for everyone to leave the office. She is known for working late so there won’t be anything unusual in her being the last to leave. There’s been no noise as far as she can hear for several minutes, but she can’t be sure and she needs to be certain. She is sitting on the floor behind her office door, a physical block from anyone opening it, from getting inside, from finding out what she has done.

             She places her ear against the wood panel of the door and hears nothing. She would love to have a pair of extendable ears right now, but she’ll make do. She stands up and opens the door and takes a peek around. She grips the wand in her hand and carefully Levitates Rita Skeeter’s body out the door, closes it softly, and then, rushing down the hall with her, she makes it to the turn before she hears some movement up ahead. She ducks into an office, the body sailing in through the door first. The steps pass and then she’s off again, and the lifts are right before her.

            Habit has her itching to touch the button but she refrains. There are over twenty lifts in the Ministry of Magic and each one used to have an attendant before Death Eaters killed them storming the Ministry. Now there’s no one to know when she forces open the wrought gold gate with a snap of her wand and lowers Skeeter’s body over the chasm. She drops it and then it’s gone. Everything is silent and she doesn’t hear the body hit. She runs down the hall into the women’s loo and vomits. She looks a little pale as she views herself in the mirror, but she looks the same as ever she thinks. She is slow walking back to her office until she reaches her doorframe and looks inside. There is blood everywhere.

           She grabs a stack of handkerchiefs from her desk and sops up as much blood as she can from the dark wood flooring and runs a bunch of them together over the top of the desk, blood spilling off the side so she has to return to the floor with another batch of handkerchiefs. She stuffs them in her purse, she’ll burn them later and throw the purse into the flames, too, she decides. She performs only a light cleaning charm and then inspects the area for any missed spots, finally finishing with a fresh air charm. She grabs her purse and coat and leaves, shutting her office door, thinking all the while that she’s forgetting to do something but she can’t make herself go back to check.

            She takes another lift up towards the atrium. She nods at a guard stationed in the cold, dark hall that somehow reflects the February gloom even this far underground. She passes into the Floo network for home, a pleasant voice calling out from above, “The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day.”

**_Five_ **

            Ron is furious as he walks down the hall towards Hermione’s office. He tried calling several times today but she had ducked every single one. Harry hadn’t answered either, and after leaving work, he rushed to the Ministry where her usual habit is to work late. He knocks on her door. No answer. He turns the handle and pushes open her office door but stops just outside the doorframe as he pales and stares inside. Fumbling in his haste for his phone, he finally manages to dial Harry and waits as it rings. No answer. He runs down the hallway and takes a lift down to level two where the Auror Office is located in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He ignores the stares and the whispers as he rushes to Harry’s office, nearly hysterical in his relief to see his door open and Harry behind his desk, an Auror leaning over it, pointing to something on a parchment.

            “Ron!” Harry is up out of his chair and pushing the Auror out the door with one hand as the other tries to corral Ron into a chair. “It’s Hermione!” Ron sobs, and the Auror just stares at Ron in shock as Harry finally closes the door on him.

            “Ron, calm down. I know you’re upset—"

            “No! No, we need to help her. The rest doesn’t matter,” he says in exasperation and blows out a breath. “Her office, Harry, there was so much…"

            “Listen, let’s stop by the Leaky, I’m pretty much finished up here—"

            “—everywhere!”

            “Blood?”

            “Yes, now let’s go already,” Ron says and starts for the door. Harry doesn’t know what to expect but follows anyway. Ron punches the button hard and they wait in tense silence for the lift. They leave the lift on the fourth level as a ding of a lift closing sounds, and it’s that little sound of normalcy that he hears everyday which causes Harry to walk a little slower until he is behind Ron and he looks at his back with an unvoiced question forming in his mind. Ron storms up to Hermione’s office, and gripping the door handle tight, pushes it open. Harry edges past Ron’s still form and begins looking carefully around.

            “Was it a drop or…?”

            “Shut it.”  

            Harry casts a revealing charm but there is only the slight glow of a light cleaning charm. He sniffs the air.

            “I’m sorry Ron, I just don’t see anything. Let’s go get that drink at the Leaky, okay?”

            Ron is nodding, looking close to tears, and Harry gives him a quick squeeze on his arm in sympathy while he leads him out.

**_Six_ **

            They settle into a booth at the Leaky Cauldron and Harry casts the Muffliato spell so they are not overheard.

            “I think I know what that was about.”

            “Do you? I think I might be losing my mind. I know I’ve lost her so why not that too, huh? There was blood everywhere. Everywhere,” he repeats looking down at his drink.

            “It’s the Horcrux,” Harry says simply, and Ron’s head snaps up. “Hufflepuff’s cup. She’s been working on it all week. That cup was powerful before Riddle got his hands on it, and you can stop giving me that look. I wouldn’t have her working on it if there was anyone else we could turn to, but this goes beyond us, okay?”

            “Yeah, alright. How is she?”

            “She fainted before lunch today.”

            “Merlin. So it’s true then?”

            “Yes,” he states and gives him a second to take the information in. “I know she was going to tell you but somehow Skeeter jumped the gun on her. You know that fucking harpy has it out for her, and it just happened.”

            “Do you know who?” Ron trails off, his blue eyes shining as he stares at his best friend, willing him to tell him the truth.

            “You have to swear not to overreact.”

            There is tense pause. “Fine. Deal.”

            “Malfoy.”

**_Seven_ **

            It is nearing lunchtime and Hermione glances at her watch again.

            “Sorry,” Harry says sheepishly and takes a seat behind his desk. His office door is shut and she is sitting in the chair before his desk.

            “No problem,” she smiles. “Ready?”

            “Just one thing first,” he says and then takes out a fresh scroll of parchment and places his quill beside it on his desktop. “It’s only a formality but you have been named as a person of interest.”

            “Concerning what?”

            “Rita Skeeter.”

            She glares at him. "How so?” she asks.

            “Her body has been found. At the bottom of one of the Ministry lifts, actually.” He looks up as Hermione gasps.

            “She left a will, and included was a document saying that if anything ever happened to her, you were suspect number one. I know, I know. I’m glad you can laugh about it… I wish I could. There are actually some Aurors who are convinced you did it.”

            Hermione’s face pales and he thinks she looks a little faint. Harry reaches behind him to where he has a fresh, clean cup on a side table and he places it before her and tilts his wand to fill it with water while muttering the Aguamenti spell. “Don’t be mad at me but I told Ron. I had to!” he raises his voice at her look of outrage. “He came in here yesterday shouting about you! You know how gossip spreads, and combined with Skeeter’s scoop in the Prophet yesterday, you can see how it looks.”

            She nods and takes a sip of water. “What do you want me to say?” she answers as she looks him in the eyes.

**_Eight_ **

            “So if you look at the time of death, then she was with me. I remember I was late taking her to lunch. We even had a false alarm and a couple of you saw me with her,” Harry says good naturedly to the group of Aurors sitting in his office.

            “But what about the alarm, then?” an Auror argues back.

            “What about it? Look at the report. Alarm goes off, nothing was found.” He shrugs slightly.

            “How do we know you didn’t help?” the Auror continues.

            “You don’t,” and Harry begins to laugh with exaggerated villainy while the other Aurors crack up. Harry takes a rolled scroll and bops the Auror on the head and they laugh harder. “Come on, be serious,” he says, and the Auror finally cracks a smile.

            “I know she’s your best friend…” he starts to say.

            “But she will still be treated like anyone else,” Harry finishes for him.

            “It’s not personal. I want to be thorough, alright? Okay, then what about Ron?” he says, determined.

            “What about him?”

            “What if he did it?”

            “Ron? What—"

            “He has motive and he was hysterical that night.”

            Harry eyes him and there’s a second of consideration. “Fine. Bring him in.”

            “You interviewed Granger.”

            “Fine. You’ll interview Ron.”

**_Nine_ **

            Ron eyes the cup of water in front of him. Harry is behind his desk and there are several Aurors in the room. One Auror, to the left of him, is standing and has been asking him questions for twenty minutes.

            “You went to her office that night? Right after work?”

            “Yes.”

            “And you saw blood.”

            “Again, I had a shock that day. I don’t know what I saw.”

            “But you believed you saw blood and that’s why you came to the Auror office?”

            “To see Harry.”

            “To see Harry?”

            “Yes, I thought I had seen something. I asked my _friend_ ,” Ron stresses the word and looks at Harry somewhat accusatorily, “to have a look.”

            “So, you went to Granger’s office.”

            “Yes.”

            “And?”

            “When I opened the door there was nothing there.”

            “Nothing?” the Auror repeats, and there is a noticeable twinge to the muscles in his face and his head tilts. “You opened the door?”

            “Yeah, I did, and there was nothing there.” He looks at Harry again with a noticeable look of ‘This guy’ easily read across his face. Harry stifles his smile and continues to look expressionless.

            The Auror flips back to a previous page of parchment. “You didn’t close her office door,” the Auror states and there is complete silence in the office. Ron looks at the Auror and then picks up the cup and takes a sip of water.

**_Ten_ **

            She comes to hearing a dull _thud-thud, thud-thud_ sound ricocheting in her ears. The sound increases as she crawls upward and her eyes fly open. She sees Harry as he opens his arms and wraps them around her. He pulls and then she’s falling and he’s cradling her on the flagstones and she feels heat at her back. He moves and she feels the scratch of wool across her skin and realizes he is wrapping a cloak around her body.  

            “You’re okay, I’m always going to make sure you're okay, Hermione,” and his voice cracks on her name and tears are running down and mixing with the streaks of blood across his face and into his untidy beard, which she notices with a frown. He pats her head and hugs her closer.

            “Harry,” she says, and his entire body spasms on a sob, his breathing erratic and then finally slowing as he continues to hold her. There’s a baby crying somewhere but in the low light of the gaslights she can only see a familiar fountain, the sprays of water jetting up from its large basin in the courtyard of Grimmauld Place, and she finds the soft gurgle soothing as she frantically tries to recall anything past shutting her office door. She twists in Harry’s hold towards the heat. There is a large, oversized cauldron bubbling and next to it in a cast iron seat sits a curly haired witch, eyes vacantly staring off into space but breathing softly with her entire right arm missing. Hermione's body turns rigid and Harry clutches her closer while making shushing noises in her ear. The fingers of her right hand clench and she feels a handle. Her fingers relax and there is a clattering on the stones.

            There are steps coming closer and then a throat is cleared and she hears a choked voice say “I love you” over the small sounds of a baby fussing.  She scrabbles to her feet, her heart beating furiously. He’s standing a little further back but his eyes are riveted on hers. He’s slowly bouncing a baby in his arms, the little boy’s face over his shoulder but his curly, blonde hair gleaming in the light from the fire. She steps forward, nearly crashing back down, but she rights herself quickly, feeling stronger each second. He’s smiling radiantly at her and she smiles back as she goes to him, her arms circling round, and the baby between them. “I love you, too,” she says in return and kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, articcat62, for the prompt.  
> Prompt #92: Hermione 'accidently' creates a Horcrux while on a mission. Does it tear her apart? Or does unexplainably escaping near-death situations start to thrill her?


End file.
